


The Ballad of Gabi and Nigel

by elvisqueso



Series: Variations on Infinite Saddness [1]
Category: Charlie Countryman (2013)
Genre: this is nothing but infinite saddness and I'm so very sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 02:35:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1209577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elvisqueso/pseuds/elvisqueso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I am an awful fucking human being and I made myself very, very sad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ballad of Gabi and Nigel

As far as he can tell, the only redeeming quality of the room is that the window faces east.  Every morning, the sunlight refracts through the window glass to wake him.  Any other man with a gash in his gut would have been pissed to be woken so early in the day, but not him.  He is grateful for it; and his gratitude is founded in the warm, full notes drifting to his ears from the cello playing downstairs.

The quack Darko brings him is a lush and just tells him to lie still for a couple weeks.  Rest is all that he needs, the doc says.  Rest and a damn good painkiller, Nigel spits.  He doesn’t get any painkiller.

“Don’t get yourself worked up, you’ll never recover.” Darko tries, lighting his cigarette and looking out the window nervously.  “I can hide you here for long enough, if you bounce back like the doc says you will.  Promise me you won’t do anything stupid, Nigel.  I gotta get out of town for a while.”

“I don’t even have the strength to do anything stupid,” indicating his nasty wound, Nigel gives Darko a scathing look, “No thanks to you.  Whatever.  Lay low.  I can’t lay much lower myself.  Just make sure I don’t fucking starve up here.”

The restaurateur makes sure Nigel doesn’t starve.

The cello makes sure Nigel doesn’t die.

“Tell me,” Nigel has the strength to sit up, now, leaned full against the wall for support, “Who plays the cello every morning here.”

“That’s Gabriella.” The restaurateur says, not looking up from the plates he brings, “You stay away from her.  She only has love for music.  Don’t go trying to distract her from that.”

“I would never.”

Nigel leans as far out the window as he is able to see the crop of short, red hair and the neck of a cello playing something he thinks is Mozart.  He never looks away.

 

There is one day Nigel tries to go down stairs to the lounge.  He barely makes it, the restaurateur almost dropping his tray at  the sight of him, then immediately bringing him to a table and setting him up with a meal.  He has a view of her now, his angel Gabriella.  He can see only her back, the short hair illuminated in sunlight as she sways and heaves with the strains of music.  People gather around her, stopping to admire, as they should.  In front of her is a tiny glass jar with coinage and paper money in it.  Nigel can’t help but feel it should be fuller.

 

Nigel can walk easily now, stairs are still tricky.  He sits outside under the awning where he can see Gabriella’s face as she becomes one with the music.  He puts a valuable bill in her jar and she smiles warmly at him.  Nigel is quite sure he is in love.

She says she recognized him, having seen him at the restaurant frequently when she played.  He says it was because her playing saved his life.

Nigel is sure it is love he sees in her eyes as well.

She greets him with a look, now, whenever he comes, which is always.  She introduces him to Wagner, Hayden, Rachmaninoff, and Shostakovich.  Afterward he asks her about her music, about her family, about her dreams.  She asks him about things, too, but his answers are vague, and, inevitably, lead to invitations out.

“We could paint this town red, if you wanted.”

“That’s a lot of paint, though.”

“You want me to teach you to shoot, instead?”

“Think I’d be as good as Annie Oakley?”

“Definitely, gorgeous.”

He buys her a custom made luger with ivory inlaid in the handle for their first anniversary.  _To My Darling, ‘Til Death Do Us Part_ is etched into the steel.  She names it Annie.

 

Now he stands here with her and that gun and there are tears in her eyes because there’s this stupid, fucking American dangling on a rope and she can’t kill him.  She’s looking at him with those eyes and she can’t.  _‘Til death do us part_ and she can’t do it.  She can’t kill the American and she can’t kill Nigel and that’s when it hits him.  It hits him with a kind of force that pulverizes his very soul.  And in her eyes he can see their entire story, told from her perspective and beyond even his absences.  _If you love me, Nigel, please let me go_.  _‘Til death do us part_.  He tries to tell her he’s sorry for everything, tries to tell her he hopes she’ll be happy no matter what, and he tries, so fucking hard, he tries to tell her he will always love her and he hopes she’ll forgive him for what he’s done and what he’s about to do.  He finds he can’t say this out loud, that he can only look back.

One simple, innocent enough motion.  That is all it takes.  The bullet from a nervous green cop impacts him hard and fast and there is no pain, only white light and Gabriella’s name in his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of feelings about Nigel and Gabi, okay?


End file.
